jjgallow

I would be shocked if they get past the Kings. Even after that 1st game. I would be double shocked if they succeeded in the 2nd round. Even in that first game... you just don't succeed in the playoffs letting 4 goals fly by you.

man. Congrats to.... @cross16? If I read this correctly. I don't think I've ever been so destroyed in one of these before. I really should have read how the points system worked lol. I figured I nailed it. nearly got the (Flames) standings right. Correctly guessed they wouldn't make playoffs. But no nearly dead last lol 😅. Starting to wonder if I should have read the instructions

I would hope they are doing both scouting and analysis. My guess is they are. Lots of reasons to be optimistic right now. I prefer to be optimistic because of reasons, not for the sake of being optimistic. Right now, I am. In general, optimistic. And a tentative fan of Conroy (check back after the draft). Shoring up the scouting dept is big. The addition and serious scouting of Russians, as one example, is big. Not everything is perfect. our draft selection, and failure to trade Markstrom stand out as the big two there. Doesn't mean Conroy is a slouch because I have seen lots of positives that outweigh this. But there's also no reason to turn a blind eye to it. Pointing it out doesn't mean we hate Markstrom, or Honzek. Just means we are being honest and transparent. Because everyone sees it including you. And nobody's giving up on Honzek, nor should anyone here need constant reassurance of that. I think some people here just get low on sleep is all. This is as it should be and hopefully not a revelation for anyone here. Nor is it in any way relevant to who we should have drafted. Not even part of that conversation. Anyone we draft should be afforded time. Pretty straightforward. Let's keep that in mind when we take our top 10 pick this summer.

I personally think Sutter did amazingly well with what he had lol. As a coach, that is. But I'm equally bewildered by Ruff. Still wonder if we have staff or players to poach from Buffalo. Nothing really pops out for me other than Dahlin. Maybe Power? I was never a fan of him though. Komarov? amazingly i see very little that we need, other than their draft picks.

Yup. Don't get me wrong, I will be very cool drafting a D in the top ten. But we should be on this all the time, any way we can. I say we don't have an elite D prospect. But, what i mean, is a high probability one. We do have some potential surprises, like Brzustewicz. We just need more.

there's a first for everything

you guys are so mush lol. it's cute. When they draft Tij, I'm gonna make a Huge thread about how horrible of a pick it was and force you all to defend him lol

Well there's Fox and Hamilton 😅

my guess is 5-7. and I'm okay with that.

that's only because if we talk about anything other than last decade, the response is "way too soon to make a call" that's all fine but I remember your reaction to Honzek quite clearly.

dude Ortio is still NHL bound, just late bloomer. wait for it.

General comment: There is a lot of talk about how important it is for us to draft an elite D this year. IMHO, while that's possible, it should actually be more in this topic. The hard nuts of it is, we need to Acquire an elite young D prospect. Quite frankly, two of them would be better, if we set our sights a little higher. IMHO, the draft is only One way to do this, and if it happens that would be nice, but I really believe the focus at draft time should be "not screwing up". Because for sure, in that top list of D, there are more than a few future duds. We simply need to get the right guy. Whatever position. We need to get the guy that we think will go highest in a redraft 10 years from now. The need for an elite D is a Real issue, but I don't think it should influence the draft decision in any way unless there is a literal tie between two players. Of course D always imho should be rated a little higher than they are at the draft, but that's a separate convo. I feel like we should be looking at it like this: We should be actively pursuing an elite D. And quite frankly should already have them by now, easily before the TDL. We should be actively pursuing it instead of just hoping for the draft. If we acquire an elite D and then we get another elite D at the draft, great. Then we would have two, and something to get really excited about. We should always be looking to move players to get elite D prospects until we are good here.

The worst case is the Flames pull a Honzek/Jankowski. And based on recent history, it is also uncomfortably likely. Flames haven't got the 1st round right since 2016 imho. You can debate 2017, 2020. And that's totally fine, not looking for a fight there. But, the chances of them going completely and wildly off the board, are much higher than we'd like. Maybe in the 50% range based on recent. We are all worried about drafting Tij, and that's a debate for sure, but at the end of the day, I'm worried about drafting a guy rated in the 2nd round lol. We should all just lower our expectations a bit and pray that they do something reasonable with the pick.

I wonder actually if 2027 could be an even better year. Highly unlikely, but if any team does massively struggle for 2 years in a row you could end up the makings of a modern day dynasty.

They get the Russians and Swedes and destroy everyone.

I dunno. Haven't thought that far lol. But I think what you pay is a function of number of fans, not amount of stars. Obviously there is a relationship between the two. I would like to think that such a system would generate more genuine interest in the sport, and thus more fans, thus more revenue. I might be wrong. But I feel even in Canada there is room for a lot more growth.

Hamilton should happen. Do some limits, like one player a year. I dunno. I feel it could work better than it is now. How could it possibly be more unfair than shipping them all off to Edmonton to be slaughtered?

@cross16 alluded to this being something about nothing. I would say, maybe, something about something else. The reason the NFL and most leagues don't have this issue, is they don't draft 17 year olds. This whole convo is about the problems around bad organisations drafting kids. Raising the age would solve more than half the problem.

It seems like there's two sides here which are far apart. If I can be any help, I'd like to offer to unify you in a proposal that you can all disagree with. Have a locale-weighted draft. Cale Makar. Landon Dupont. Come to mind. I think that if a player comes from your city or territory, you should have some kind of advantage over everyone else in being able to draft them. I dunno what that looks like, but back in the day, guys just played for the closest team (I mean like, back, back, back in the day) and it was just fine. When we talk about good organizations versus bad organizations, I like to think of more than team performance. I like to think of teams that give back to the community, help support new rink construction and upgrades, help kids play that otherwise wouldn't be able to. In that sense, I think the Flames have actually done very, very well. They should be rewarded for it. What's the arguement about this? Well it's that there's teams that need the top talent in order to promote the game and expand it. No they don't. They need to give back to their community and help foster hockey locally. Then when their city develops NHL players they can have first shot at them. Players get to play close to familly, means all sorts of less issues. Fans have something way more powerful to cheer for. So really what's the downside? Well yeah it's possible Toronto could run away with many cups, it's true. But maybe not. And, if they do, they would pick last in the draft and things would balance. Counter-balances could be put in place if they aren't already. Point is....all these guys who wanna play for Toronto because that's where they grew up? Let em. Calgary? Let em. To a point, of course. Maybe one player per draft. And maybe you pay a price if you have massive advantage. But I think it would be cool.

just throwing those complements around, love it

Who was saying that? about no D in the top 10 https://www.tsn.ca/nhl/draftcentre/craig-s-list-after-impressive-u18-showing-axel-sandin-pellikka-moves-into-top-5-1.1960662 https://www.tsn.ca/intrigue-and-excitement-in-the-year-of-connor-bedard-at-the-nhl-draft-1.1976262 At least one of the buttons thought there was. but...don't get me wrong, your point is valid. The discrepancies are beyond wild lol. I was...shocked...to see the Flames pass in the D department. I'm not a Button fan, but I suspect he got it right with Pellika.

very tough call. a lot of them need d badly due to their history of short term decision making. traditionally, d are the ones that drop. i still think Tij, as much as I would like him, may be a moot point because someone will pick him over an incredibly good defenceman. We just have to know who that defenceman is. Because not all 6 of them will end up being difference makers.

yeah that's fair, it's just a salary question. he was the "unless we want to start eating salaries" bit for me. he good.

Mr. Andersson is sort of our last big play. Outside of things like Coronato, Honzek, Wolf. I'm not too excited about trading Wolf. But I would trade Coronato or Honzek, for future equivalent picks or better. Or as part of a package for a top, top D prospect. Of the vets we have, yeah it's kind of Andersson and that's it, unless we want to get into eating salary.

that was all pre-trade deadline though. We knew the spike in Markstrom's performance wouldn't last, and it didn't. He would need to have another year like that, and we'd have to wait until trade deadline, for him to have that value again and even then it would be very hard with him a year older. But hey, there have been crazier trades, never ruling anything out. But it's a bit astonishing that we didn't take it. One thing I did realize after: It probably actually helped our first pick placement, keeping him.